Fred Malek, Then and Now

-- March 17, 1972, Malek memo to Haldeman.

Malek's role as the program's chief architect, and his later activity as deputy director of the Committee to Reelect the President, were reviewed by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in 1982 when he was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to be a governor of the U.S. Postal Service.

The Republican-led Senate committee, after two days of hearings with Malek, refused to act on his nomination because, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, senators felt that he had made conflicting statements under oath regarding his role in the program.

Before leaving the committee, however, Malek, sitting in the witness chair, caught an earful, according to a committee report on his hearings. Said then-Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.), an opponent of the spoils system, on March 12, 1982:

"My understanding of the responsiveness program, whether it was legal or illegal . . . is that it was wrong, just plain wrong.

"We know what we mean by responsiveness programs, by misuse of a public trust, by using a government office in order to win a political campaign: That was true of the Nixon administration, it was true of the Watergate era, it was true of the responsiveness program, you admit that it was true, you admit that it was wrong . . . you regret it and you will never do it again. . . . Am I wrong or right?"

Fred Malek: "You are absolutely right, senator."

Sen. David Pryor (D-Ark.): "Did resigning ever occur to you in the period of time when you were running the responsiveness program? Did it ever occur to you that what you were doing was wrong or immoral?"

Mr. Malek: "Yes, sir, it did."

Sen. Pryor. "But you did nothing about it?"

Mr. Malek: "Well, we did something about it. We simply refrained from pursuing with vigor aspects of the program that had been laid out in prior memos."

Under questioning by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) during the second day of hearings, Malek admitted that a memo written by him did suggest that people who were not Nixon's supporters be punished in some way. "Unethical, immoral and improper" was the way Levin described Malek's role, adding that Malek had "spearheaded a calculated, systematic effort to sell government favors to the highest bidder in the Nixon reelection campaign and to punish low bidders or the nonbidders." Which may explain why Malek's bid for the postal job died in committee. If only the responsiveness program had been his sole bad deed.